During the Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB), which opened on Monday, Senior ministers, development finance leaders, and private sector executives gathered in Brazzaville to discuss how African economies can monetize state-owned infrastructure assets to mobilize fresh capital for development projects without further straining public finances.
The discussions took place during a high-level roundtable titled “Transforming Public Assets into Capital: Unlocking the Potential of Asset Recycling in Africa,” organized by investment platform Africa50 in partnership with the African Development Bank Group on the sidelines of the lender’s 61st Annual Meetings, hosted in the Republic of the Congo from 24 to 29 May.
Participants said asset recycling, whereby governments lease, concession, or partially privatize mature public assets such as ports, airports, toll roads, and power infrastructure, could become a major source of long-term development financing for African economies struggling to close the continent’s widening infrastructure gap.
According to the AfDB, Africa requires nearly $150 billion annually to meet its infrastructure needs; yet financing shortages continue to undermine industrialization, intra-African trade, economic competitiveness, and job creation.
“Asset recycling is essential. It provides governments with a concrete way to unlock the value of mature public assets, attract private capital and expertise, and reinvest the proceeds into new priority infrastructure,” President of the African Development Bank Group Sidi Ould Tah said in his opening address.
Ould Tah stressed that African countries must accelerate efforts to build bankable project pipelines and move toward establishing a continent-wide asset recycling platform capable of attracting institutional investors and global capital.
“We need to move from concept to pipeline, from pipeline to transactions, and from transactions to a continental asset recycling platform,” he said.
The debate reflects a broader shift among African policymakers toward alternative financing mechanisms as sovereign borrowing costs rise and debt vulnerabilities deepen across several economies.
Alain Ebobissé, CEO of Africa50, said the key challenge facing governments was no longer whether asset recycling should be adopted, but how to implement it transparently and efficiently to maximise economic returns.
Speakers repeatedly warned against using proceeds from recycled assets to finance budget deficits, arguing instead that revenues should be channelled into productive infrastructure investments capable of generating long-term growth.
Senegalese Minister of Economy, Planning and Cooperation Abdourahmane Sarr said a recent national assessment showed that around 40 percent of the country’s public assets could potentially be recycled to help ease debt pressures and reduce fiscal imbalances.
With Senegal’s debt estimated at nearly 120 percent of GDP, Sarr said some assets could be transferred to private investors to reduce sovereign risk, while others still required further maturation before monetization.
Meanwhile, Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Planning and Development Souleymane Diarrassouba underscored the importance of regulatory reforms and investor-friendly frameworks for attracting long-term capital into infrastructure projects.
He added that Côte d’Ivoire’s newly established sovereign wealth fund could play a central role in financing major infrastructure investments and supporting economic transformation.
Mauritania’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Development Abdallah Ould Souleymane Ould Cheikh Sidia identified ports and energy infrastructure as strategic assets capable of driving industrial expansion and supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises.
President of the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa Abdullah Almusaibeeh said the institution is open to partnerships with the private sector to help African countries develop innovative financing solutions and improve resource mobilization.
For his part, Manuel Moses, CEO of African Trade & Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI), called on African governments to strengthen governance frameworks around recyclable public assets to improve investor confidence and ensure investment proceeds are directed toward sectors with the greatest social and economic impact.
Other officials stressed that stronger project preparation, transparent regulatory frameworks, and credible investment pipelines would be essential to scaling up infrastructure financing and attracting private capital into African markets.
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